New Cover for Demetrios's Book

Life seems to be getting back to what passes for normal in this neck of the woods. For the moment at least.

And one sign is that I actually had time to go looking for Demetrios and Anny's book cover. It used to be that someone from Toronto sent them. And they still will, if you remember to ask. I haven't had time to remember to ask.

But the other night, I was online and I thought, Hmmm . . . it comes out in UK next month. I'll have a look.

And there it was!

Am I pleased? Oh, yes.

Somehow the covers that look like they've been inspired by From Here to Eternity just work. They're intense, they're romantic. They're unlikely to introduce some incongruity -- though I do recall an Alp in my Bahamas on The Inconvenient Bride which was my other FHTE cover, and which, in spite of the Alp and the fact that most of the book took place in New York City, has always been one of my favorite covers.

This new one, now called The Virgin's Proposition, is lovely, too. At least in my mind. He looks enough like Demetrios to work for me (sadly, Raoul Bova doesn't do book cover modeling!) and she could be Anny.

What do you think?

I know they are changing the covers on Mills & Boon Moderns (which end up here in the US as Presents or Presents Extra) and I have seen the new ones. They are okay. This one is better. So my thanks to the artist whoever he/she is -- and the models, whoever they are -- for making me smile, for putting a good cover of Demetrios and Anny's book.

Sailing Away redux

Remember these?

I posted them when Demetrios and Anny finally left the building.

Of course they sailed back for revisions, but by then I had those summer-camping grandkids here.

And then we went out west to see Sol and Hank and Ellie and the revisions were becalmed, just waiting.

Finally, when I got home, I got back to them. And basically, while the ed didn't ask for much, what she asked for (wisely) made me rewrite the last eight chapters of the book -- and add an extra chapter for good measure.

So if I've been quiet here, it's because I've virtually rewritten 160 odd pages in the past three weeks.

But it's done. And gone. And now I'm thinking of things I should add.

Somebody stop me!!!

Why I Don't Have My Revisions Finished

The silence you've seen (heard?) from my end is because I have been devoted to working on my revisions since I got back from the west.

Well, I also got a cold and that slowed things down a bit. As did the multitude of electrical storms that had me turning the computer off and on more than I would have liked.

But I've been working -- and I need to go on record as saying that if anyone ever says to you, an editor for example, that if you just changed one thing in the beginning bit -- have the hero say yes instead of no -- that won't be much trouble, it's just one word, right? Don't believe them!

Yes, it's just one word. But the ramifications are, um, vast. Basically it changes everything that happens to some degree for the rest of the book. Which means not only writing about what happens once he says, "yes," but also what happens after he's done what he's agreed to do.

Because, believe me, baby, things are not the same.

I knew that. I knew it when I started. And I wouldn't have agreed to do it if I hadn't seen that there was some wisdom in doing it that way. It's a different angle on the same story, but a stronger angle, perhaps. And that's all to the good.

But it's taking time to do right.

And of course I couldn't get to it because I was busy. And I would post some of the real Extremely Important Reasons I was busy here, but Blogger isn't uploading pix tonight.

So I'll do it tomorrow. I hope.

Meanwhile I'm heading back to the book.

Sailing Away

I promised you sailboats when Demetrios and Anny left the building.

Enjoy!

I am!

The last gasp

So I'm up to my neck in chapters that need sorting and some scenes that need writing before I can say this book is done.

I'm intending to get it done by Monday. That means a lot of work between now and then. But after today, which had enough electric storms to do me for the whole summer, I'm hoping for less interruption tomorrow.

Plus The Prof, the eldest son and four of the grandsons are going camping for Father's Day -- a tradition that began a few years ago. They bond over dirt, bugs, sunburn, pain, charred food and other fun things -- and I (and the dogs) have the homefront to ourselves.

We are planning a marathon of writing. Wish us luck. If all the boats are in a row come Tuesday morning, you will know that Demetrios and Anny are on their way to England (a heck of a lot faster than they got from Cannes to Santorini)!

Revelations

No, this is not a theological treatise.

But it has that feeling. It's about one of those times when the little voice echoes inside your ear (or in this case, mine) and tells you something you might or might not be prepared to hear.

In this case, though, it wasn't about God, it was about books.

Writing. Specifically writing Demetrios and Anny.

While the saga of Charley continues, I'm in the middle of chapter seven of the book I'm supposed to be writing on him. The book that is due June 15th. The book that showed every promise of being there on time.

And yet . . .

There was something in chapter six that had the effect of making me feel as if I was going in a circle, and the circle didn't seem to be tightening.

The circle itself is not a bad sign. As I get closer to the end of a book, things are supposed to speed up, the circle is supposed to tighten. There's supposed to be a logical inevitability to the story that I, at least, can see (even if Demetrios and Anny can't yet).

It's supposed to make it easier to get to the end.

Notice all those "suppose"s in the previous two paragraphs. So, if that isn't happening -- if in sailboat terms, we're becalmed -- if the circle is flat, something is wrong.

Usually it's lack of obstacle. Usually I have to go back and dig deeper to discover what is 'really' keeping the characters apart.

In this case there was too much keeping them apart. They had one obstacle too many.

Anny couldn't go forward because of a moral imperative. Neither could Demetrios. They were going to be in this circle forever (or well past June 15th) if I didn't do something.

So today I will be going back and helping Anny sort out her dilemma rather earlier in the book. She needs to make her decision in chapter three, not chapter six. Then Demetrios and Anny can get where they're going. Or at least where I hope they're going.

Why didn't I see this sooner? Why did I have my 15 beats all figured out (and they still all exist) and yet still have a problem? I don't know.

After 63 books, I'm still learning.

So I spent the morning trying to figure out where the changes need to come. I think I've got it. Now I need to work them in. I'm headed back to chapter one.

I told Charley that a few minutes ago.

He said hopefully, "So you won't be, um, needing me right now?"

I said, "I will certainly need you. What do you think I type on?"

He looked a little crestfallen. "Oh," he said. "Sure. Be right with you."

I think he's ringing some hot red laptop, rearranging plans.

Learning to Sail

If you've noticed my absence (and I sort of hope you have), it's because of the looming deadline and the basic need to learn to sail in order to reach it.

My characters have sailed before, as I've said, thanks largely to Peggy Nicholson who has taken them (and me) by the hand and sailed us through all sorts of seas and manuevers.

But Peggy isn't around to help this time. Her friend (and mine, but more hers) Antoinette Stockenberg has done a brilliant job of providing me with a boat and advice, but I haven't felt as if I should be asking Antoinette to answer every question.

So I've been trying to figure it out myself. I have a CD now that is teaching me how to sail. I have a couple of terrific books on sailing that I've mined for detail. And the internet, bless it, has introduced me to a variety of sites and message boards that are answering almost every question I've thought to ask.

The issue isn't really sailing. The issue is Demetrios and Anny's relationship. But it's played out against a sailing backdrop at this point in the book. And the relationship has to be integral to the environment. They have to support each other.

So I'm working on that. I'm also working on recipes using sea bass and saints who have feast days in late May and I'm so looking forward to Santorini where I've got a house I know and family I'm familiar with and every other minute won't be spent trying to figure out the appropriate telling detail -- I'll just know it instinctively.

Still, the challenge keeps the story fresh. And I'm learning tons.

I just wish I could learn how not to get seasick!

What you always wanted to know about passport control . . .

... but were afraid to ask.

Or in my case, had no idea who to ask. But I needed to know so I didn't end up with a plot in which Demetrios or Anny got arrested for entering a country illegally.

Ordinarily this would not be a problem because ordinarily when you send your characters on commercial flights or regularly scheduled public transportation between two countries, it's understood that they do what they're supposed to do (unless you're writing a thriller in which case they might very well not).

But when they're hopping on and off a private sailboat, you want to know -- or at least I do -- that they are not breaking laws that are going to complicate the plot somewhere down the road when the customs and immigration people turn up.

So . . . I went searching.

And I found the Schengen Agreement.

The Schengen Agreement is going to solve all my plot problems. Or at least all the ones that would have occurred if customs and immigration had shown up.

They won't because of the Schengen Agreement which was first enacted in 1985 among five countries in Europe who created a common border of immigration and within it travel was conducted as if it were a single country. More countries joined this pact, which is not, interestingly enough, coterminous with the EU (some EU countries, like the UK and Ireland are not in it and other non-EU countries, like Norway and Iceland, are in it). There are 25 countries currently participating in this agreement.

The dark blue countries on the map above are Schengen participating countries. The purple countries who have either opted-out, like UK and Ireland, or they are, like Bulgaria, Cyprus and Romania, working on their own external border controls. When they are on a par with the others in the pact, apparently they, too, will be admitted to the Schengen Agreement.

Demetrios and Anny are thrilled to learn about the Schengen Agreement. They had no idea starring in a book would be so educational.

While they are not deeply into political science, Anny at least has certain governmental responsibilities that would make her aware of this (pity she didn't tell me). In any case, they are glad it exists because it's going to make grocery shopping much easier.

I'm delighted because they are complicating their own lives quite enough in this book. They don't need the help of a passel of government bureacracies!

In fact, chances are you will never find mention of customs and immigration issues in this book. As long as they don't have to comply with any border control, there's no need to.

But just between us -- those of you who read this blog will have the straight "behind the book" stuff.

You will now know about the Schengen Agreement.

And every time Anny and Demetrios stop to buy groceries or have a meal or walk around a village, you can nod sagely and say to yourselves, "And they can do that because of the Schengen Agreement."

See? You learn something new every day.

One more research question

Thanks to Rach and to Antoinette, I now have a time frame for Demetrios and Anny's sailing adventure. And Antoinette has provided them with a fabulous boat.

So I currently have just one more question for those in the know.

If you are sailing on a private vessel between European countries -- in this case France, Italy and Greece -- how do you comply with customs and passport control when you enter and leave a country?

If you moor your boat off an Italian coastal village for a night and go into town for provisions, officially what do you need to do?

Maybe that's two questions, but I think it's just one. I'm going to be checking online to see if I can find the answer. But if you've ever done it yourself and want to enlighten me, I'd be very grateful.

The book is halfway there now. And the rest seems to have at least a clue about what it's supposed to be doing. This is a good thing as it's due June 15th.

Anny has told me that she wants LOTS of time available on the boat as she has several things planned.

I said, "We'll see." Ever since she's been giving me narrow looks.

As I quite agree with her ideas, though, I will probably allow her all the time she needs.

Poor Demetrios.

Research help!

Miss me?

I got caught up in taking care of Ellie and Henry last week. And when I wasn't doing that, I was hard at work on Demetrios and Anny.

The interminable (or so it seemed) chapter two finally ended (after 7500+ words) and I was able to move into -- and straight through -- chapter three in a couple of days.

I came home on Saturday and made the wonderful discovery that being stuck in the Minneapolis-St Paul airport for almost 5 hours had no downside at all. The food court has counters with electrical strips running along the back and there is an outlet for every seat.

So I bought my personal pizza and a nice cup of tea and set up the laptop (with its wonky battery I despaired of being able to do much work) and got almost 1500 words done before I had to catch my next flight.

Right now Mpls-St Paul (MSP) is at the top of my favorite airports list. If I could figure out who to write a fan letter to for all those electrical hookups, I'd do it in a minute. If you know, tell me.

And now I'm in chapter four. Which requires sailing knowledge. Not a ton, but more than I have. And my sailing friend -- at least the one I usually consult -- Peggy Nicholson who wrote Run So Far, one of my favorite Harlequin Presents of all time, is up to her eyeballs in work of her own right now.

I've put out feelers to my other sailing friend, Antoinette Stockenberg, and I hope she can answer.

But in case she can't, if any of you have sailing in the Mediterranean knowledge, can I please pick your brain?

I need to get Demetrios from Cannes to Santorini realistically. The internet is letting me down.

So if you can come to my rescue, I'd be much obliged. So would Demetrios, who has assured his brother Theo that it won't be a problem.

Well, he didn't think it would be. Neither did I.

I'm still hopeful that it won't be!

I'll bore you with Ellie and Henry pix another day. Right now I have to do the stuff I can do in chapter four without the particular details I'm going to need before the final draft.

First off, I need to find a sailboat.

Welcome to Procrastination

As I've now left Demetrios standing on a corner (watching all the girls go by) for the past week, it should be no surprise that I understand the fine art of procrastination.

I need to get him moving again today. And I will because I finally (I hope) have figured out the reason he's still standing there. Short answer: Even though I knew where he was going next, I didn't know how to get him there. Now I think I do. And so I will.

But in the meantime, I've discovered that my dear friend Anne Gracie has developed two new levels of procrastination at once!

She's begun a blog. And she's taken up twittering.

While I completely endorse her blogging (as if twice monthly on Word Wenches isn't enough), and I'm happy she's twittering so I can follow her (though I don't twitter myself), I understand this for what it is -- avoidance.

I'm avoiding Demetrios. She's avoiding Luke. Why are we avoiding these strong compelling men?

Well, possibly because they are so strong and compelling we can't quite figure out what to do with them -- and we're a bit nervous of letting them do what they want. No, not a bit. In my case, I'm very nervous about letting Demetrios do what he wants.

So I've stranded him on a street corner while I figure out what to do with him. And the last I knew, Anne had set Luke to digging a grave.

Her scenario sounds way more interesting. You don't often get to have contemporary heroes digging graves as a matter of course. It's worth thinking about, though.

Anyway, I'm delighted she's blogging because I can read her -- and get to see pics of her very photogenic dog, Chloe.

And thus take even more time away from Demetrios.

Or not. Actually, since I'm off to see Henry & Ellie on the weekend, I need to get Demetrios off that corner and doing something seriously heroic.

I hope.

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone is having a happy Easter -- or whatever you happen to celebrate at this time of year.

We didn't dye eggs this year. Not much point with just the two of us here. The twins are coming tomorrow, but they will already have done the Easter egg hunt at their house, so I'm off the hook on dying eggs.

I seem to be off the hook on fixing dinner, too, since fixing dinner for four year olds and their father is something of a useless exercises. Especially if they'd rather have pizza. I love fixing Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas dinner, but I've never been all that excited about Easter meals. So pizza is fine with me if it's fine with them.

More time to work on Demetrios.

He finally appeared today -- for the first time -- in the first scene. He's been waffling around poking his nose in various scenes trying to help me sort through the story, but he'd never officially "made an entrance" until today.

Holy heck. That man certainly does know how to make an entire room stop and stare.

I had no idea.

Maybe it's the "Presents hero" in him. He's pretty determined to live up to the chatter. He's heard mutterings about Seb being an "Iceman" but a softie underneath. And he's not sure he likes the notion ofbeing under the microscope of a lot of perceptive females.

He's a very private guy, our Demetrios.

I've promised to allow him to keep his protective shell ("Armor, damn it," he just said to me. "It's not a shell. You make me sound like an egg.") for a while. But I'm warning him that Anny is going to get under it.

He just said, "We'll see about that," and stalked out of the room.

I just love a reluctant hero.

Happy Easter to all of you, from all of us (that's me, the Prof, Seb and Neely, Demetrios and Anny, the twins, their father, Micah and Mitch the golden guys, and anyone else who happens to drift through the office in the next few days)!

A Tribute to Beat Sheets

Last year sometime when I was having an email conversation with Liz Fielding, she mentioned a a DVD by Christopher Vogler and Michael Hauge that she was listening to. It was about the hero's two journeys -- and since I have found Vogler's work useful, I thought I'd check it out.

In looking for it, I stumbled across Blake Snyder's Save the Cat.

How can you not want to read a book called Save the Cat?

Well, my dogs might not -- though Gunnar was very fond of Kate Walker's best pal, Sid. But other than a few dogs, most of us want to save the cats we run across, especially ones that will help with writing. So I bought the book.

It's a terrific book. Primarily focused on screenwriting, it can nevertheless help any author spot the empty places in a story. And that's even after the fact.

Up front, before I even have a draft, Blake's beat sheet has helped me come to grips with Demetrios and Anny's story.

They were off drifting in the middle of the Mediterranean (in my head -- they were nowhere close to the water in the draft) and I couldn't see any point at which to bring them back. And until I'd figured out what they were coming back for, I couldn't seem to get them there.

Enter the beat sheet.

Writing down what I knew of the story so far, I had made it all the way to the "break into Act Two." I knew bits and pieces of what was coming after. But the beat sheet made me stop and think sensibly about it.

What would up the ante? Who was already there that could cause more trouble? What conflicts -- inner and external -- would put the screws even tighter to Demetrios and Anny? Amazingly, it was all there already in the stuff that had gone before. I only needed to mine it.

So I did.

And I found my theme!

Who knew? I've never had a theme in the 62 books I've written. Well, I suppose I have, but I've never been able to articulate it in less than 50,000 words.

With Demetrios and Anny I can. I did.

So, thanks, Blake. Your Save the Cat is going right up there on the shelf next to Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit. I expect to be pulling it down often. It's always nice to find a book that inspires again. And again.

Happy St David's Day!

If you're not from Wales, you probably don't celebrate St David's Day.

You may not even realize it is St David's Day. Well, now you do. We have always celebrated it because, well, we have Welsh ancestry and a son named David. It seemed like a good reason every year.

Plus, March 1st means it's almost spring. The daffodils are -- hereabouts at least -- not quite poking their heads above ground. But the snow is mostly gone and things are definitely looking up.

Things are brightening up on the home front as well. I have a new best friend -- a Fujitsu 510 document feed scanner that swallows 18 pages a minutes (or so it says, and I believe it), reads BOTH SIDES of the document, throws out blank pages and turns the resulting files into searchable .pdfs.

It's amazing. I don't know how I lived without out it. Well, yes, I do. I had an office that looked like I papered the floor -- five layers deep. And this was AFTER I'd filled sixteen file boxes with paper first.

No more. The paper is dwindling fast. The floor has reappeared. The scanned files are building up in the nice new external hard drive I got to go along with the scanner. They are making my life so much neater, not to mention how much easier it is to find what I'm looking for.

And while I scan, I commune with Demetrios. He looked, at first glance, far too perfect and easy going. I felt like the old lady shouting, "Where's the beef?" because there didn't seem to be any conflict. I pointed that out to him. I said, "Anny has problems. You are on top of the world. What's up with that?"

He didn't answer for what seemed like weeks. But then the other day while I was scanning, he came in and stared at me and when I stared back, he said, "Shows what you know," and turned around and left again.

First cross word I've had from him. Hmmm. And now it turns out he's had things going on in his life I knew nothing about. Important things. Life altering things. And everyone knew it -- including, it seems, the paparazzi. Everyone but me.

So we're getting somewhere. He's talking a bit at last. Thank heavens. We need to get to work here.

I'm reading over Christo in galley form. I hate galleys. I've read the book too many times (especially this book) and I have no perspective anymore. I can't always even see typos, so I have to read it out loud. It's excruciating.

Meanwhile, Heather is sending me book pages to proofread and get read to link up. She's got the most current books loaded (the last three), and she promises a vast upload of backlist sometime this week. I'll be excited to see them again. I hope you'll check them out, too.

Happy St David's day! Happy almost spring!

Getting a box . . . sort of

It's that time of year again.

I'm gearing up for Demetrios and Anny and so over the past week I was thinking about the book and what I have and what I need, and I remembered Twyla Tharp's advice: Get a box.

Well, maybe she didn't say that in so many words. What she said was that she gets a box whenever she's starting a new project. And she puts stuff in the box that relates to it, inspires it, makes her remember bits and pieces of it. It's a good idea.

Some people do collages. Anne Gracie does wonderful collages. So does Jennifer Crusie. I'm not that visual. So I thought, a box. Yes, I can do that.

And I did. Sebastian and Neely have a box. The trouble with their box is, the box reflects the book I didn't write.

Some of it is the same -- the people, the conflict, the guinea pig, the rabbits, the bloodhound, the kittens.

But not the editor. And not the setting. Though there's still water and a houseboat involved.

So the box is a container, but half the stuff on the outside of it doesn't reflect the book. Even the hero doesn't reflect the man Sebastian came to be.

So . . .

This time the box is going to be a file folder on my computer. It's going to have my hero as its icon. And inside his folder I'm sticking all the Cannes photos and the train schedules and the videos I took and the mementos from the festival hall.

It's got pictures of Anny -- and Demetrios, of course. Thousands of her (because there are thousands of her photos everywhere) and two of his because he doesn't seem to be nearly as visible. No dogs yet. No kittens. No bloodhound. No guinea pig.

There aren't a lot of details coming to me yet. Well, there's a yacht. And a sailboat. And a Greek restaurant. Probably a good thing I don't have a box. They wouldn't fit.

I'm casting off today, steering toward the horizon, wondering where the dragons are and how soon I'll meet them. I hope I at least get out of the harbor!

# # #

The winner of the Here Come the Grooms contest for Santos Cordero from Kate Walker's Cordero's Forced Bride, is Lynn of Florida. Congratulations, Lynn. I'll get PJ's book off to you post haste.

# # #

There really is going to be an update to my website (and eventually the blog). Keep holding your breath. Heather has had an emergency and can't get it finished right now. What I've seen, I love. It will be worth the wait.

# # #

We're going to play a version of I-Ching for Demetrios and Anny.

Tell me three things:

• a weather related item (my mother will be especially good at this)
  
• a color
• a small gift

And let me see what it sparks off in my mind for Demetrios and Anny. The first three ideas that spark off something will win their submitter a copy of one of my backlist titles -- your choice, provided I can find it in the attic.

Hammock Time

I know I'm supposed to be feeling the pressure of the upcoming Christmas season. I will. I promise.

But right now I'm in that soft, swaying place where the book is gone and the new book is barely forming in my mind, and I can see at least a part of the carpet in my office (it's blue. I'd almost forgotten) and after a week of dealing with a very sick dog, he seems to be currently improving (so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for a miracle as he is 12 and that's 80-something in dog years), I don't want to do anything except lie here and drift.

Which is one reason you've had a dearth of blog entries this week. What could I say? Nothing was happening. I wasn't even reading. I was just . . . drifting.

It felt great to drift. Everyone should get to now and then.

But I have a feeling the drift is about to come to an end. I bought the Thanksgiving turkey today. Which means I had to clean out the refrigerator to find a place for it, which means I did less drifting than I had been.

And the characters are beginning to nag again. It's Demetrios this time.

He was the actor brother of Tallie and Theo Savas. Now's he's an independent film producer/director. He's in Cannes, and he's not exactly patient. He wants me to get on with his story. Across a crowded room he's just spotted a woman he never thought he'd see again.

And he's annoyed that I won't get out of my hammock and get to work.

I need to think about this some more, though. At least that's what I'm telling him. In the meantime I think I can get at least a few days more of relaxation.

After Thanksgiving? Yeah, I think that's about right. Maybe Christo's book will be back for revisions then and I can put Demetrios off a while longer.

Maybe I'll start looking for collage pictures. I think I know what he looks like. But I need to get a better idea about his heroine, Anny. At least I have lots of pictures of Cannes.

Anny is blonde, by the way. Wholesome. Girl next door-ish. Which, when he finds out who she really is, turns his world upside down. She's also capable of absolutely stunning elegance when required. Think Cinderella at the ball, minus the mice and the fairy godmother.

You guys helped me find the perfect Natalie. That's her to the left. Want to take a shot at Anny?

Post links or tell me names and I'll check them out.

I can do that while I'm still lying in the hammock.

Are We There Yet?

One of the things about armchair traveling is that you don't have anyone in the back seat saying, "Are we there yet?"

I blogged this weekend on The Pink Heart Society blog about the joys of glossy travel magazines.

And while you can bet I'd take a 'real' trip hands down almost anywhere, there are certain joys to pulling out a magazine, sitting down, putting my feet up and reading my way into the nightlife of Paris or the lure of a honeymoon in Fiji or an island getaway in the Seychelles.

I love reading about almost anything to do with travel. It's the next best thing to being there. And sometimes, given the hassles of getting anywhere today, it's better. Well, maybe not better, but less stressful.

One of my sons, who worked off-shore and overseas for a few years, says still, "I love being other places. I just don't much like getting there."

Amen.

Early on I counseled my kids -- and I continually remind myself -- that 'travel time' is like 'Dream time.' The real world as we know it -- and to some degree control it -- ceases to exist when we travel. We start at home and, until we get where we are going, we're simply at the mercy of forces larger than ourselves.

It pays to remember that when luggage gets lost, planes get delayed or sent to Detroit instead of Philadelphia. It helps when you're entertaining children for 16 hours in the Denver airport because Untied Airlines can't get you on the flight they said you'd be on. Did I misspell something there?

I love my glossy magazines. I love the places they take me that make me want to go buy guide books and book my reservations. I love the people who wander into my mind and say, "I could live there. And you could write a book about me. Let me tell you my story."

I'm doing that in Cannes in early October. Demetrios Savas (Tallie and Theo's brother) has a date with destiny in Cannes. The story -- and a terrific heroine who is going to give Demetrios a run for his money -- appeared when I was reading an article about the film festival there.

Who knew? I certainly didn't when I started out reading that evening.

I'm counting the days.
Every morning I wake up and think, "Are we there yet?"